


What has been and what never was.

by TerresDeBrume



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied miscarriage, Mentions of Pregnancy, Mentions of Violence, fem!Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony just can't believe she's behaving like nothing happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What has been and what never was.

“Will you come out with us, or are you going to pout all day?” Loki asks from the door to Tony’s bedroom, and Tony turns in his bed so that his back is to her. “Fine,” she says, “be that way. I personally am _not_ going to mope around! If you try to look for me, I’ll be at the theme park with Thor’s moronic friends,  _they_ might need a babysitter if we want them not to destroy anything.”

 

Loki’s gone in the blink of an eye, swirls of green smoke the only trace of her presence, and Tony bites into his pillow to keep from screaming because what. The actual. Hell?

On his bedside table, there’s a photo of her.

Not because they’re dating: strictly speaking, they’re not. There are no candlelight diners or ballads in the park, or going ice skating together, or anything of the sort. They don’t even go to the cinema on their own.

 

But Tony keeps the photograph because she’s smiling in it, happy and settled in her own skin. She wears a green summer dress that covers her from shoulder to toes, and the heavy swell of her belly is accented by the way she’s leaning back in order to balance her weight. Tony keeps the picture close to him because he actually _liked_ seeing her like that, as much as it terrified him.

He misses the sensation of feet kicking at his hand through flesh and skin.

 

The frame smashes against the wall.

 

{ooo}

 

Diner is a silent affair.

Tony remembers how it was like, not two weeks ago, when they were all excited and enthusiastic and talking all over the others -as if what they had to say was so important they couldn’t wait one more minute to get it out, couldn’t even bother to check everyone had finished their own sentence before they started sprouting their nonsense- and they were loud and obnoxious and uncaring.

Tonight, nobody speaks, until the pasta salad has finished its first turn of table, and Loki turns to Thor:

 

“So, brother,” she asks in a barely uncomfortable tone, “How was your day?”

“It was fine,” Thor forces past the silence that threatens to smother them all. “The ladies Jane and Darcy took me to visit a museum of science. You would have found it very interesting.”

“I’m sure I would have,” Loki answers between two forkfuls of pasta. “Although our day was interesting in its own right. I do believe Volstagg made a new friend?”

 

For a second, silence floats over the table again, and Tony thinks –hopes- they’re going to stop talking, but Volstagg seems to shake himself, and starts explaining how he bumped into that lovely Asian girl who sold some sort of exotic food.

Thor asks him what he thought of said food, and the conversation grows gradually less awkward, less forced, with Loki, Sif and the rest of the warrior three joining in, and if Tony could he would murder them all with his glare because _seriously_?

From the corner of his eyes, Tony sees Pepper and Steve exchange a worried glance, and the other Avengers’ eyes go back and forth between Tony and Loki, between rage and inane chatter, while the Ass-guardians are completely oblivious –or uncaring- that Tony is literally _seething_ over here.

 

Then Loki laughs and he _loses it_.

 

“You really don’t care at all, do you?” He snarls, and everybody falls silent. Sif and Thor look at each other in that ‘oh crap’ way that signals shit’s about to hit the fan, and Tony continues, finger pointing at Loki: “You don’t give a fuck about what happened! I can’t believe our baby _died_ not a week ago and you’re laughing and flirting like nothing happened!”

 

Loki, seated between Steve and Fandral, fixes Tony with the coldest glare in her repertoire, and were he in his normal state, that would be enough to make him shut up, but not this time. Not when it’s _his_ child Loki is so quick to forget. Because he may not have dated her properly, he may not be in love with her, but he _loves_ the baby, loves her even if she never had a chance to take her first breath, and the thought that Loki’s pushing her into a second grave, more powerful than the real one that’s… that’s untolerable.

 

“Are you done?” Loki asks, and you could freeze ice cream with her voice. “Do you think you are the only one who feels the loss? _I_ was the one who bore her, _I_ was the one who knew she was here from the very first cell division, _I_ was the one who bled and suffered on a dirty table in the middle of nowhere, _I_ was the one who had to look between my legs and find a _corpse_. Make no mistake Stark, she was mine to love long before you even _realized_ that she existed.”

“And that gives you the right to act as though she never existed then?” Tony snarls. “You _heartless bastard, you_ —”

“I WILL NOT PERMIT YOU TO DISRESPECT MY SISTER THIS WAY,” Thor shouts as he rises when the word ‘heartless’ leaves Tony’s mouth, and in an instant Sif, Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg are on their feet, looking grim and ready to actually skewer Tony on the spot, but right now he really doesn’t care.

“Are you kidding me?” He says, ignoring Pepper, whose face is pleading to please, please calm down, it’s not good for you to get that worked up -but she’s got no back-up, seeing as no one but Tony is crazy enough to brave Thor when he pulls that face, and the billionaire continues: “So what, because she’s the one who grew fat, she gets to be the one who decides if anyone should mourn my daughter or not?”

“Loki mourns as she will,” Sif says, hand on her sword, “it is not yours to question.”

“Well with the amount of mourning she does I’m almost glad the baby was never born! At least she didn’t have to realize her mother didn’t even _care_ about her!”

“FUCK YOU!” Loki screams as she springs on her feet, and lamps explode in the dining room. “ _Fuck you_ , Tony Stark! Who are you to decide what kind of mother I am or am not? What do you know about being a parent? What do _you_ know about anything even remotely _approaching_ family? You have _no idea_ what it is to have a child! You know _nothing_ of what it is to suffer for them and _from them_ , you know _nothing_ of what it is like to feel them grow inside you, kick at your insides until they come out to meet you! You know _nothing_ of what a mother feels when she hold her child for the first time, of the fear and love and desire to protect! You have _no idea_ what it is to feed them, and dress them, and love them, and have them torn from your arms and your home, never to see them again! _You know nothing of children,_ not what they need, not what they are, _and certainly **not** how I feel about them!_ ” At that point, Loki’s voice turn into an angry screech, half hysterical, and everybody stops moving, even Tony, and they stare at her while lamps keep bursting, showering the room with sparks. “ _Who are **you** to decide I’m not mourning hard enough? Who are **you** to tell me how I should react to losing yet another child? **What would you have me do?**_ Am I supposed to be like you and hide in my bed until I forget? Am I supposed to never see the light of day again because fate has decided to wrong me again? What have _you_ done in her memory, Stark? You say I don’t care about what happened, yet it isn’t you who went after Doom!”

“You…You went after Doom?” Tony says, dumbstruck, and Loki’s entire body shines, _vibrates_ with power, green and black and electric in its own right.

“Oh _yes_ , I went after him,” Loki confirms, and the look on her face, right now, is _exactly_ the reason why she’s been wrongly-dubbed as the goddess of evil, Tony would bet the plans of his suit on that. “I went after him, and found him, and I _now_ he keeps his _balls_ in a box on his nightstand, with a bag I made with the skin of his _back_.”

 

Tony sees the other Avengers pale, and a violent shiver crawls its way up his spine as he feels the air get literally thicker. In this moment, in this very instant, and perhaps for the first time since Loki came to earth seven years ago, Tony Stark is genuinely, undeniably _terrified_ of her, and he couldn’t move if he tried, but Thor and the Warrior Three nod, as if what Loki did was the only acceptable course of action, and Sif wears a hard mask of fierce approbation that makes her look disturbingly like Loki.

 

“You know _nothing_ of who I am or what I feel,” Loki repeats, her voice softer but all the more dangerous for it, “I advise you Anthony Stark, do not _cross me_ on this, or _your_ balls will be the next ones on my list.”

 

The table explodes in protest at that: Pepper shouts that Loki’s insane if she thinks she can do anything about it, and Steve leaps up on the table to get at her –even _he_ learned his lesson about striking female villains, in his time, but it’s disturbing to see him look so _furious_ that he’s about to initiate a fight with one.

He doesn’t have time to go very far though, because Sif catches him in the nose with a vicious fist, and she has her sword pointed at his throat before he can do so much as twitch toward his shield. Around them, the others freeze, Natasha and Clint with their hands on the guns they carry around 24/7, and Bruce with his hand on Pepper’s shoulder, while the latter is muffling her own voice with white knuckles.

 

“I would not try that again if I were you,” Sif warns, and if she wasn’t scary enough by herself –which she is- one look at the way the Warrior Three are clutching their weapons, or at Thor and the way Mjölnir is crackling with electricity, would be more than enough to stop every single one of them from moving a single finger.

“I thought…” Steve gulps, Adam’s apple brushing against the tip of Sif’s sword, the action drawing blood, “I thought you hated her.”

“I have no trust and no love for the Goddess or the Sorceress,” Sif says without moving, “But I guard the princess, protect the sister, and respect the mother. Keep this in mind mortal, any attempt on her life will be repaid by death, regardless of your success.”

 

Tony sees Steve shoot a worried look at Thor, but when he does the same, he can only see a grim determination on the Thunderer’s face, and he shudders. It makes sense, after all: he’s been alive for thousands of years, almost ten millenniums of loving and protecting the same sister. In his eyes, the span of Tony, or Pepper, or _Jane’s_ life is equal to the blink of an eye. _Of course_ he’s going to pick the people he’ll have to live with for the rest of eternity.

Slowly, very slowly, Sif withdraws her sword and puts it back in her scabbard. Then, without looking away from Steve, she speaks to Thor:

 

“I do believe we are not welcome here anymore.”

 

Thor takes a look around, obviously saddened by this turn of events, and for barely a second, Tony hopes he’s going to call the whole thing off and stay with the Avengers, that he’s going to pick _his_ side, but all he does is sigh in a way that shows exactly how old he is, and tell his friends:

 

“Gather your belongings. We are going back to Asgard. We will leave on the morrow.” There is a beat, and then he turns to Loki: “You are welcome to join us, sister.”

“Allow me to decline brother,” Loki answers, straight backed and cold-voiced. “I have just lost a child, I need no reminder of those who were taken from me. I will take you to the opening of the Bifrost, and then I shall find somewhere to live on my own.”

“As you will, sister,” Thor says, not without softness. “Do let us know where that is once you found it.”

 

Loki nods, then looks at the Warrior Three. When she has their unspoken permission, a cloud of green smoke envelops them, and they vanish from the room, leaving the Avengers with a table covered in broken porcelain and bent cutlery, with Steve lying in the middle of it.

 

“My sister has mothered six children,” Thor says with a voice that cuts deep at Tony’s heart, because they’ve never heard him be that cold to anyone, not even their worst enemies. “And she has borne many others who did not live long enough to see the light of day. All were taken from her in some ways, and she has never allowed herself to shed a tear ever since her firstborn became my father’s steed, for it would have been considered a weakness. She is the second heir to the crown, future steward of Asgard and protector of the realm.”

“What, after all she’s done?” Clint interjects, and Thor literally _bristles_.

“For all her faults, Loki has never tried to harm our homeland,” he says with finality. “And this title was not taken from her. It is the role of a protector to go to impossible lengths to keep us safe, even if it means earning the contempt of all Asgardians. Protectors do not weep, or linger on the past.”

“I… I didn’t know,” Tony says, frowning, because that’s a shitty concept, really.

“Even so,” Thor says, “Loki was right. It is not your place to decide how she should express her grieving, not when you are ignorant of what happened to her before you were made aware of our existence.”

 

{ooo}

 

He finds Loki in her room, sitting on the king size bed with a large book made of yellowed parchment, shuffling through paintings of various subjects.

A small snake, coiled around her wrist like a bracelet, an eight-legged foal trotting through a field, a little girl whose body is ink-black on the right, pale blue on the left with a wolf pup in her tiny arms. Tony hears her sniffle, and he has to brace himself before he knocks on her door.

 

“Go away,” she says, sullen, and Tony stops walking, but he doesn’t leave either.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know you’d had other kids.” She snorts, the long curtain of her hair swaying with the movement. “I’m still mad at you,” he admits. “I don’t think I’ll stop being mad at you for a long time. But I think I get why you’re acting like that now, and I just wanted to say sorry, for calling you heartless. I… I know you’re not like that. Not really.”

 

Loki, who went rigid when Tony refused to go, is still gazing at the pages of the ancient tome in her lap, paintings moving likes videos on repeat, and she refuses to meet Tony’s eyes.

 

“Try and be safe,” Tony says at last, “wherever you go.”

“She would have had your eyes,” Loki says just as Tony reaches the door. “I was thinking of calling her Maria.”

 

Tony closes the door behind him, and all but runs to the stairs, ignoring Pepper’s surprised exclamation when he literally pushes past her. Once he reaches his workshop, he has to force his voice to ask Jarvis to lock the door and close the blinds.

 

His arc reactor glows in the darkness of the room, but for once it’s not his first concern when he slides to the ground and allows himself to cry.

**Author's Note:**

> Can't/won't comment on AO3? You can go Anon (or not) [here](http://terresdebrume.tumblr.com/ask). :)
> 
>  **EDIT:** There is now a sort-of-sequel to this: _[...and then apples](http://archiveofourown.org/works/459428)_ , in cas you're interested :)


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